Do beardies 'love'?

Do Bearded Dragons feel love?

Hi there. I am an animal welfare student and have to produce a investigative project of my choosing. I have chosen to investigate the bond between bearded dragon and human and explore the possibility of beardies feeling affection.

I would appreciate it if you could comment with your personal experience with your bearded dragon, any moments where you felt that the bond between you and your dragon was more than just about food. Any moments where your dragon exhibited affectionate behaviour or simply describe the bond you have with your dragon.

I will be using these in my project, so provide as much detail as necessary.

Thank you in advance for your replies, I look forward to reading them!

My experience is they can become very strongly bonded to their keeper and show they are happy to be nursed and petted by them by displaying their "happy colors" and will seek out this person and even follow them and come to them when called.

I think a lot more goes on in their brains than most give them credit for.

I'll point out it's very strongly correlated to how the keeper interacts with them and has a lot to do with how they nutured by the keeper.

If someone asked me - I'd say yes , they can love their human (but it's not like a pet dog or a pet rat or a pet pig or a pet parrot ) it's more akin to how a pet cat related to it's person.

All four of my previous pet bearded dragons had unique personalities, and interacted with us differently. I'm expecting my two new hatchlings to be different again , though Cleo is already showing a willingness and desire to have human contact and interaction (loves being nursed and petted already (we bought her at 2 months old from a breeder on Friday).
Our new boy is very much a force of nature and likes to be independent and is not overly keen on being picked up, but will let me pet him when he's basking, he's just going to take a while to come around.

You need to be more precise in how you describe "love" as a animal <-> human emotional / psychological state.
Love means different things to different people , even inside a culture.

Just to give you another quite different experience, Flash runs away and hides from me all the time. He only seemed to want to be around me when I closed all the doors to my bathroom and put him in there with me. He ran around a lot but calmed down and came over to me for a little bit. I would say yes, they do love their keepers, but they don't always show it.

Not all dragons love equally!!!

Peaches was very special to me.
She missed me when I wasn't home with her. I say this because she wouldn't eat unless I fed her, She would see me come in the room after I got home and, she would perk up and, pace back and forth until I got her out and, held her for a while. Then she would settle in and cuddle up by my neck, put her little claw in my ear and go to sleep.
She also knew how to get me to do what she wanted.
One afternoon I was setting here responding to posts on this site and, she started pacing, looking up at the back wall of her domain and, then look back at me as if to say "HEY, I WANTS SOMETHING HOOMAN". This went on for 30 minutes or so and, she didn't want out, so it was something else. It took a bit but, I guessed pretty good. I went out to the shop and made a 24" long shelf and put it on the back wall where she kept looking, WOW!!!! It worked, there was no anger issues with it, no adjusting to it being there or any of the normal stress issues related to adding things. She jumped up on it and, that is where she would stay most of the day if she wasn't basking on her favorite log.
She also had a way of telling me she didn't like things!!!
I was trying to find things that dragons like to eat and, came across Bok Choy and, how much some of the dragons on here liked it so, off to the store I went. Drove 20 miles (one way) to a store in Indiana that had it after she went Night-Night. So bright and, early next morning I cut it up and mixed it in her other greens.....OOOOOPS BAD IDEA!!!! Normally she would ravage her salad in the morning but, she sniffed it and, cocked her head like a monkey trying to solve a math problem...Hmmmm! So I went on to work and, about 20 minutes later I get a call from my wife saying and, I quote "Your D*** dragon scattered her salad all over her house and, pooped twice in it"!!! No more Bok choy for that little dragon, LOL!!! The bonsai tree was a gift to make up for the bok choy fiassco, LOL!!!
So I guess what I am saying is Yes, they love you as much or more than you love them, they also can communicate in some ways, their likes and, dislikes if you are tuned into them closely. OH, I miss her!!!!!

There are other things she would do but I can't bring myself to type it all Sorry

Hi,

Love is subjective, even between people, but I think they are capable of expressing a mix of preference & comfort in companionship that is their equivalent. I have two beardies: one I raised from a few weeks old, and another that is a rescue. The one I raised will be sitting on my wife at night while we're both on the couch. Presuming that we're both large, safe, warm places to relax and that there is no other difference like smell that might explain it, there'd be no reason for the following behavior: he will sit on her for a little while, but then traverse the entire length of the couch to crawl up on my stomach. He'll look at me for a minute almost as if asking permission, and then proceed to "snuggle" into my hand or under my chin. Snuggling is a little wiggling/burrowing motion they do when they're trying to get comfortable where they're going to sleep. He will then fall asleep on me and feels safe enough that when I go to put him back in his cage, he does not wake up.

The other thing he will do is sit on me and play what I call the "eyeball game". Beardies will close one eye when they are relaxed, and I can get him to close his when I close mine repeatably. Both behaviors are 'loving' in a sense, at least as I perceive it. It could certainly be anthropomorphising or, in the case of the eyeball game, mimicry, but there isn't a strictly survival reason for either, so it seems to be something else. My other beardie gets the same attention, feeding, and care, but is only just starting to sleep on my chest, and doesn't show a preference between my wife & I. I just this week got him to close his eye when I did mine, but I don't feel that he 'loves me' quite yet.

I guess the bottom line is that love as a concept is not like an empirical quantity that you can put a yardstick to, but a subjective one. I love my wife, choose to be around her, and display affection. He seems to do the same around me in the manner he is able. Subjectively, then, I believe that my original dragon loves me. Make of that what you will

If a dragon can feel something akin to love, it would have to come from more than just human = food. I read something years ago that all emotions can be traced back to fear, aggression, and pleasure. Love would be a complex shape of pleasure. Having safe and rewarding interaction with food, time outside enclosure, feeling heat from skin to scales could all contribute to pleasurable memories for a dragon. From what I've read dragon's have very good memories from the moment they hatch. It is how they will remember sources of food and safe hides in the wild and so on. Dragons certainly know who interacts with them the most and who is a stranger. Building memories that are based on pleasure without anything that causes fear or aggression could be love-like on my opinion. As the human I have more than enough love to share between me and Devlyn. Something awesome Devlyn did was about 6 weeks after I got her, I had come home from work and she ran from her basking spot then went up to the glass door and pressed against the edge I always open when I get in her enclosure with her face and hands. It was obvious she went out of her way to communicate "hey it's you, I trust you to let me have outside time like we've done before". I liked that a lot. She does not glass-surf as many people describe their dragons to do. Since that time every day or so she goes to that corner, hands and face on glass, and waits. If anything is a sign of love from her, that is it.

I must say, I love this thread. I absolutely believe they can love. They just express it differently than you, I, a dog, a cat, etc. I don't have much other experience other than Tampico does a lot of what the others explained. I've even noticed she's become more loving to my bf and can relax on him without hesitantion now, whereas before she'd run the first chance she got. I think smell also has a lot to do with it and I always make sure I give the little one big snuggles so she knows momma's always there.

Some very good replies so far, thank you all so much! You've really got the cogs turning in my head and given me a lot of material for my project, including the concept of 'love' itself and the different types of love and forms it comes in. I agree that 'love' is not the same to a bearded dragon as it is to a dog. Another interesting point I bring up in my assignment relates to the theory of attachment.

The evolutionary theory is that animals have an inbuilt instinctive drive to attach and bond with a caregiver (usually their mother) for survival reasons, as they depend on them for food, warmth and protection. Beardies however are independent from the moment their eggs are covered up and left by mum, so speaking from an evolutionary point of view, the need to form an attachment would not exist, as they can look after themselves, so naturally they do not need to rely on another.

However, domesticating beardies has created a dependence on another. Domestic beardies cannot go and find food whenever they want it, cannot leave their vivs whenever they desire, and associate a human carer with these things, so would that alter their natural dependency and cause them to attach to a carer, seeing as they are cared for and nurtured from the day they hatch, when in the wild they would not be?

I agree with the previous posts that bearded dragons experience love, but not in a mammalian manner, or at least in a way we currently don't understand due to their solitary nature in the wild. I feel that the fact bearded dragons have facial recognition is also key in this argument, as it can demonstrate that they acknowledge we are another creature, and not just a nice tree to sit on.

In terms of my own experience with my beardie, Pancake, he definitely has shown signs of affection and attachment towards me.

The strongest example that comes to mind is when I left my house for three days to go on a school trip. By this point I had had Pancake for four months, and he was getting quite friendly (sometimes didn't want to go back in his terrarium because he wanted to sit on my chest instead, burrowing into my shoulder for a nap, willingly jumping into my hands, etc.). He was also familiar with my parents, who have fed him before and cleaned up his bathroom messes if I am preoccupied with school- essentially, even when I am gone he is still in the same familiar environment, with people who he recognizes are not a threat and will provide him with necessities. If bearded dragons only cared about food, then when I had left for the three days, his behaviour should have theoretically remained the same. However, my parents contacted me multiple times during my trip saying after he ate his food and went to the bathroom, he would sulk in the corner of his terrarium. The moment I returned home, Pancake went berserk; he had heard my voice when I was saying hello to my dogs, zoomed out of the corner of his tank, and started running from one end to the other until I came and said hello to him too.

Your project sounds very interesting, best of luck!

Scientists don't know for sure if reptiles "love", but we do know that they will connect with humans. Samantha and I have a very strong bond! :love10: